


Golden

by Havanar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I Love You, Japanese Shiro (Voltron), Keith and Shiro need to talk, M/M, Scars, slight s6 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 11:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15818430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Havanar/pseuds/Havanar
Summary: Shiro isn't made of gold. But he wants to fill Keith's scars with something just as precious.





	Golden

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sheith Angst Week 2018. I'm actually really proud of this haha.

Shiro used to be known as the Garrison’s golden boy. He’d never thought much of the name, he’d never felt all that golden. He was just your average pilot who worked hard and flew well. But sometimes the new cadets looked at him like he was made of gold, like he was the prize at the end of the Garrison. Their goal. Keith had been no exception, he’d looked at Shiro as if he could turn lead into gold just by touch.

Shiro began to hate the title even more after Kerberos, after he became the champion. Any part of him that had once been golden was long dead, lying on the arena floor somewhere in distant space. But Keith had never stopped looking at him in awe, never stopped treating him like the most precious, the most valuable, of metals.

Sometimes the way Keith looked at him, the way Keith spoke of him, made him feel just a little bit golden again.

Until he woke up from an Altean healing pod in the Black Lion, with one arm and a handful of new memories, to a Keith with a scar running down his face.

 

* * *

Shiro reaches out a hand, the only one he has right now, to land on Keith’s cheek. His thumb traces over the scar that sits there. The one that stops just under his eye. The one that he put there.

“I did this.” He says, his voice low. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to convey just how sorry he is. He remembers everything, his own memories and the clone’s had melded together somewhere, he wasn’t really sure how. The clone’s memories were like watching someone play a video game. He could see out of the eyes, but he didn’t have any control, he couldn’t go back and change them.

“I’m so sorry, Keith.” He says, and Keith gives him a small smile.

Keith has changed in their time apart, he’s taller now. No longer the scrawny kid Shiro had picked up in an underfunded school on the outskirts of the city. His face has grown too, he can see it under the scar and the black eye. He’d put that there too. But he still looks at Shiro with the same admiration, the admiration that made him feel, just a little, like the Garrison golden boy again. Something in that look makes his heart twist, like someone’s wrapped a hand around it, squeezing it tighter and tighter.

_I’m not really that golden._  He wants to say.

_I’m not really what you think I am_.

He wants to shake Keith. To tell him to leave, to stop following him into despair and pain.

_You deserve so much more than I can give you._ He thinks, leaning forward until his forehead meets Keith’s.

“It’s okay.” Keith says.

Shiro’s heard him say “it’s okay” hundreds of times since waking up. He’d heard Keith mutter it to his mother, a tall Galra with the same features as Keith, as she tried to rub some kind of salve over his black eye. He’d heard Keith say it when Allura offered him the pod for his injuries. He’d heard him say it to the other Paladins over the coms as they battered him with questions.

“Keith.” He says as their foreheads touch. They’re alone in the Black Lion today. It’s the first time since he left the pod, since he woke up. It’s the first time he’s been alone with Keith in so long. And Keith looks so tired. He almost looks like he has two black eyes, one swallowed by the bruise that Shiro - the clone -  had given him and the other lined with a dark circle. Of all of them, Keith’s taken the most hits on their journey. His shoulder sliced open by a member of the Blade of Marmora. His hand burnt by a druid. Numerous bruises from missions, from throwing himself in front of his friends too many times. A broken finger from a crash landing.

Keith isn’t broken, he’s far from it, stronger than all of them put together. But there are cracks, and scars, like the one running up his cheek.

Shiro’s mother, a small woman from Kanazawa in north-western Japan, used to fix broken things with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold. Plates, bowls. Whatever Shiro broke, whatever his father had carelessly dropped, she’d fix, Leaving golden cracks behind.  _We can’t all be perfect, Takashi._  She had said once, when he asked her why she did it.  _So we should embrace the imperfections._

Shiro isn’t made of gold. But he wants to fill Keith’s scars with something just as precious.

“I love you too.” He whispers into Keith’s dark hair, planting a kiss to the top of his head.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was based on / inspired by the Japanese technique of Kintsugi, fixing something with gold. I've never actually seen it in person but I've seen posts about it on tumblr and photos (and I've read up on it a little.) I thought it was fitting for Shiro. 
> 
> Also Shiro's mom being from Kanazawa is because Kanazawa is famous for gold leaf, I'm talking gold leaf face masks, gold leaf ice cream, its amazing.
> 
> Come speak to me @ [Havanarr](http://havanarr.tumblr.com/)


End file.
